How to Build a Tomato Cage

Build a tomato cage by tying bamboo or wooden stakes together with wire or rope and tying the tomato plant to the cage with yarn. Keep tomato plants off the ground, where fungus can grow on the plant, by building a tomato cage with instructions from a... View Video Transcript

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Stan DeFreitas

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Stan Defreitas, Mr. Green Thumb. We're at Willow Tree Nursery at St. Petersburg, Florida. Now, a lot of folks like growing tomatas, but one of the major problems with tomatoes is that they tend to get gangly, and they tend to kind of fall over. And if the tomatoes laying on the ground, well, often there's pathogens there. There's fungal problems, there's bacterial problems, that are inherit. So if you can get your tomato up off the ground, you increase your chances of not having a problem. Now you can build wooden structures if you'd like, different lattices and things of that nature, but one of the most inexpensive and probably best ideas that I've come up with over the last few years is that of thee tomato cage, tomato ring, if you will. Now this tomato cage is made with metal. Almost every nursery has a tomato cage, so you could simply go down to your local nursery and buy one. Building your own structure is going to be simple. There's a number of different things you could use. We mentioned the wire, you could spot weld it or even something simple, like we've got back here. Bamboo stakes could be tied together with wire which you could get at your local supply store. If you're going into a craft store, they've got wood. You can use redwood, you can use cedar, you'd probably want something that won't rot too easily. You can either tie it together, I don't care if you use wire. You can use rope, you can use twine, you can actually build it together, but remember you need to get something that you can tie together. You can get commercial ties at almost every nursery. They're usually some type of a wire that are covered with a little bit of plastic, and the reason is, well you don't want to cut into your favorite plant. If you also have to tie the plant to the...to the stake, either use some type of yarn, something that won't be cutting through your plant like hard wire might. So make sure you use something soft, I don't care if it's an old pantyhose or sock, pretend you're a Georgia Tech graduate and you want to build something just super, you can build something...very large, or you can build something small. Building a cage will make you a better tomato grower. I'm Stan DeFreitas for askmrgreenthumb.com.